New Delhi: Leaders of the G-20 countries should endeavour to tap investment opportunity of around $1 trillion in emerging markets like India and China to revive the global economy, said S P Hinduja, chairman of the London-based Hinduja Group on Friday.

“Countries like India, China and other emerging markets represent a more than $1-trillion opportunity. Vast untapped reserves of consumer demand, job creation and infrastructure investment...are opportunities waiting to be tapped,” he said in a statement on the eve of the G20 Summit in Washington.

Noting that there is an urgent need to restore growth and stimulate employment, he said, “OECD economies (should) focus on job creation, especially within the private sector through fiscal stimulus and specific incentives.”

The billionaire businessman also made a case for “improving regulations of markets, including a review of the role of non-executive directors, auditors, hedge funds and the rating agencies”.

Pointing out that development on nuclear power will take time, he said, the Indian government at the moment should focus on developing small power projects in rural and semi-urban areas.

“By starting short-gestation projects in rural and semi-urban areas, we would also be providing much needed employment and gradually lift the rural masses up to middle class-level,” he added.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, along with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, will be attending the G-20 Summit called by US President George W. Bush to discuss the problems facing the global economy.